'I do trust you.' She came back a few steps, and he met her in the middle of the veranda.
In one of her swift transitions of mood a humorous element in the situation seemed to appeal to her, and she said with a laugh:--'It's comical, isn't it?
The two tragedies, black and white--we two here--those two out there!' Just then the black curtain of cloud, that had been rising slowly and obscuring the stars, was torn by a strong flash of chain lightning.

It threw up her face in startling clearness and he saw, in strange blend with the conflicting emotions upon it, the wraith of her old whimsical smile.
He did not answer her laugh.

In truth, the man's nature was stirred to a more deep-reaching extent perhaps than ever in his life before.

It may have been the flash of lightning recalling a momentary flash of illumination that had once shone upon his own soul.
That had been when he was kneeling by the bedside of his dying wife, and her last words revealed to him a magnanimity of devotion for which he had been wholly unprepared.

He had thought her merely amiable and stupid--except in her love for him--and his sentiments towards her had been a mixture of boredom, and the tolerant consideration due to the bestower of substantial benefits.